Who knows. Andy Wolf predicts in this morning's NY Sun that when the history books are written, the beginning of the end of Gotham's grand school experiment will be marked at a frigid bus stop at 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 31. Perhaps.

People are indeed fuming. I've been getting emails from all sorts of people who attended this week's Working Families Party/UFT rally, most of whom are arguing that dismissing the collective anger as the mere political work of the unions isn't doing the frustrations justice. Even the Bloomberg administration, which from day one has proudly thumbed its nose at any suggestion that public support is necessary in school reform, seems to understand the gravity of what is playing out right now.

The strategy -- that you can get so much done without public interference that at some point that public would not only forgive you, but pat you on the back for a job well done -- was always risky. It even was at odds with the nature of mayoral control itself, which as former Mayor Giuliani always reminded us, really was supposed to be about holding someone accountable every day of the year for what was happening with the city's 1,400 schools.

Things are certainly tense right now among parent-types. I'd argue that back when the mayor won control of the schools in 2002 that many of them were prepared for bigtime change, and understood the gridlock that results when you have to reach a consensus on everything that happens in a school system that has 1.1 million kids. But they weren't ready to be snarled at for caring, especially from a billionaire mayor who would never, ever allow his kids to be educated in the city's struggling public schools.

It is way too early to declare this thing dead, and an awful lot can happen between now and 2009 when the legislation sunsets. Mayor Bloomberg has long been accused of running his schools like a business. I always thought that charge was completely off-base, since successful businesses tend to understand that they have customers. Perhaps the way to save both the school system and mayoral control right now would be to run the schools MORE like a business, where customers actually matter. I'm not talking about appeasing parent-leader types, but parents themselves.

You can start by giving them a chance to get their money back if they aren't happy.